Last weekend’s trip to LA turned up some exciting new discoveries as well as an opportunity to see some extraordinary works by well known artists. LA’s art scene is rapidly growing with new galleries and artist-run spaces.

Art Los Angeles Contemporary Art Fair:

The work of Todd Gray at Meliksetian and Briggs was quite moving. Gray’s rich background both as artist (Cal Arts MFA in ’89) and collaborator with Michael Jackson make for a very interesting point of view. Gray’s time Ghana has become a significant influence in his new work. It struck a cord for us, as several years ago, we curated the collection for the US Embassy in Accra, Ghana. It’s a beautiful and complex culture and we see the sensitivity with which Gray has incorporated its ethos.

New work by Amir Nikravan looked great at Various Small Fires gallery. Nikravan’s work blurs the boundaries between painting, sculpture and photography, in fact to make his paintings, he actually lays the canvas onto physical forms and then paints it in its sculptural state before removing it and stretching the canvas. They are optical mysteries.

Amir Nikravan, Mask IV, 2015, acrylic on fabric over aluminum

Nick Aguayo’s new work includes marble dust in the acrylic which makes for a beautiful ‘hand’ in the paint. Having just finished his MFA three years ago, it’s amazing that Aguayo’s work appears so resolved and confident.

It was great to see Henrik Eiben’s small scale watercolors, since much of Eiben’s work is geometric and often sculptural.

Henrik Eiben, Tiderays 2, 2015, watercolor, crayon on paper

Galleries:

Sculptor Evan Holloway is showing for the first time at David Kordansky Gallery. Holloway’s work nods to “the do-it-yourself” innovation, mysticism and idiosyncratic engagement with contemporary culture” says Kordansky. This is a great exhibition showing the breadth of the artist’s oeuvre.

Evan Holloway, Serpent and Lightening, 2016, and Benzoin, 2015

Museum quality show at Blum & Poe features some of the greatest American artists and their Korean counterparts. It was incredible to see the works juxtaposed in this really thoughtful and well curated show.

Art and technology is hot topic these days, especially here in the Bay Area. It works well when the technology is both the vehicle for the concept and also the best medium for expressing the idea. In his work London based multi-media artist Haroon Mizra (b. 1977) looks to technology-influenced artists who came before him for inspiration and collaboration. LA based artist Channa Horwitz (1932 – 2015) made complex intricate geometric drawings that were based on systems of logic…she called them ‘Sonokinatography’. While the drawings and painting always had aesthetic appeal, she was interested in collaborations with other artists and open to their performative interpretations. Here, at Francois Ghebaly Gallery, Mizra transcribes Horwitz’s seminal ‘Sonokinatography Composition III’ in the form of an immersive sound and LED installation that emphasizes the relationship between its sonic and light elements.

In the rapidly growing DTLA ‘Arts District’, we caught the final days of Alex Hubbard’s ambitious exhibition at Maccarone’s spectacular new space. These large scale works explore painting as performance…Hubbard pours pigmented urethane, resin and fiberglass creating translucent panels where every element including resin stretcher bars and harware is visible.

Alex Hubbard installation at Maccarone Gallery

Italian painter, Luca Bertolo’s small show at Marc Foxx is a great example of the range of styles the artist explores. Experimentation is a word that best describes this artists motivation. Perhaps it comes from his early education in mathematical logic which got left behind after illustration classes proved to be a whole new frontier for discovery. Whatever the influence, this is an excellent painter.

CES Gallery had a nice group show of emerging artists whose work focuses on material experimentation. Artist team Doty/Glasco’s work was a standout. The artists spent most of 2014 touring the US and photographing it’s glory. This body of work references Plaza Blanca in New Mexico. Printed on silk which is flowing at the bottom, the work takes on it’s own topography.

Diana Thater at Los Angeles County Art Museum is a ‘not to be missed’ exhibition. This comprehensive exhibition reaches back to 1992 and includes some of Thater’s most significant works. This immersive show explores the complex relationships humans have with nature.

Diana Thater, installation. LACMA

Artist Joe Reihsen has just opened The Viewing Room where he and co-curator Tony Lewis in their exhibition, Spaghetti Code explore notions of the human body in the digital world. Spaghetti code is a term for source code that is messy and if one error occurs then everything else is effected or crashes. Each of the artists featured in this show use structure or structured methods to make their work to very different ends. Samantha Bittman for example uses weaving as structure but with strategically placed painting, the underlying structure is obscured and visually less relevant.

Samantha Bittman, Untitled, acrylic on handwoven textile

At ARTBandini, an artist run space off the beatten path we were glad to learn about the work of Katie Shaprio. Having just recently completed her MFA at UC Irvine, and then a residency at the Banff Center, Shapiro’s collages and large scale prints express her poetic view of the landscape.

On this visit to Chicago we looked beyond the amazing public art in Millennium Park to visit gallery exhibits, a corporate collection and the international contemporary art fair EXPO Chicago on the Navy Pier.

Mickalene Thomas: I was Born to do Great Things at Kavi Gupta Gallery

Gallery installation view. Photo courtesy of Kavigupta.com

I was born to do great things are the quoted words of Sandra Bush, Mickalene Thomas’s late mother, a statement that speaks for both the dynamic life that she lived as well as her influence and inspiration on Thomas’s artistic practice as her longtime muse. Bush has been prominent as a subject in Thomas’s works over the past 14 years, inspiring her examinations of identity and style through her magnetic personality and undeniable presence. This presentation of new work explores the personal story of the woman behind the inspiration. This is a story in celebration of womanhood, motherhood, and the power of art as a totem for personal memory, a story in celebration of Sandra. ~ Kavi Gupta Gallery

Gallery installation view. Photo courtesy of Kavigupta.com

Mickalene Thomas ‘I was Born to do Great Things’ acrylic on canvas

Mickalene Thomas, ‘Untitled’, bronze

Samantha Bittman: Razzle Dazzle at Andrew Rafacz Gallery. Chicago artist Samantha Bittman created loom-woven textiles with thick acrylic painted surfaces, that are installed on site-specific custom wallpaper. Referencing the dazzle camouflage technique used on World War I naval ships, the exhibition incorporates bold patterns to confuse, not conceal, throwing texture to the viewer as a distraction from the underlying patterns in the woven surface below.

Samantha Bittman, ‘Razzle Dazzle’ Installation view

Samantha Bittman ‘Untitled’, 2014 acrylic on handwoven textiles

Carol Jackson: High Plains Drifter at Threewalls Gallery In this exhibition Jackson builds a car wreck emerging from the wall, mixed media prints, and archival prints from webcam stills of California Highways all inspired by John Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost. The artworks explore America’s fascination, romance and dependence on the automobile.

Hank Willis Thomas: Bench Marks presented by Monique Meloche Gallery’s Off the Wall projectBench Marks is installed onto various public bus benches throughout Chicago’s Wicker Park Bucktown neighborhood. The installation includes a selection of images from three different bodies of the artist’s work, namely: Branded, Fair Warning and Strange Fruit.

Jenny Kendler ‘Tell it to the Birds’ installation at the Natural Resources Defense Council booth.

Chicago artist Jenny Kendler has been chosen to be the founding participant in the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Artist-in-Residence program. Kendler’s works explore the intersections between human culture, perceptions of the natural world, and declining biodiversity. For the NRDC EXPO Chicago booth, exhibit walls are covered in lichen-camouflage wallpaper and adorned with delicate sculptures of birds, which Kendler creates by altering and ‘rewilding’ vintage porcelain figurines. These intimate, yet uncanny sculptural works stand in for real-life bird species, threatened or endangered by environmental hazards like habitat loss, energy projects and climate change.

We try to take advantage of VIP programming at the art fairs we attend and visit private collections. Collectors have such unique ways of engaging and living with art. A visit to Richard Sandor’s collection at his Environmental Financial Products offices was a fascinating experience. Mr. Sandor has been collecting photography for so long that his collection is broad and deep. Sandor is known as the ‘father of carbon trading’ so you might expect that his collection has an environmental focus. Of interest to us was the emerging work he has been buying in China for the last 10 years. Sandor says the first thing he does when he gets off the plane is to go out and look at photography because it connects him to the culture in a more meaningful way than his meetings around economics and trade.

Mr. Sandor talks about one the emerging Chinese artists in his collection.